4 Decoupage Can Be Deadly

by Lois Winston

  I tried a few more calming breaths with limited success. My limbs continued to shake, and my heart continued to beat rapidly. So I ratcheted up my courage as high as possible and unfolded the note.

  I WON’T BE IGNORED. I WILL HAVE JUSTICE.

  Who won’t be ignored? Justice for what? The typewritten note made no sense. It contained no clue as to the sender’s identity other than the person probably didn’t own a computer. Who uses a typewriter any more—and an old typewriter, at that, from the looks of the uneven ink and broken J?

  Philomena’s killer was still on the loose, possibly prowling around Trimedia, but if the note had some connection to the murder, that connection escaped me. I hated word puzzles. I’d dealt with too many of them over the last few months. Between the note I discovered in Lou Beaumont’s apartment, the ones sent by Erica Milano’s stalker, and the puzzle of Lyndella Wegner’s journals, I’d had my fill of cryptic messages. Now this one. I needed an Enigma machine. Or a decoder ring.

  Too bad there’s never a decryption device around when you need one. In lieu of any code-breaking hardware, I placed a call to Detective Batswin, pushed the button to engage the speaker, and placed my cell in the cup holder.

  Never one for unnecessary pleasantries, Batswin answered with, “What can I do for you now, Mrs. Pollack?”

  I shifted into Drive, released the brake, and exited the Trimedia parking lot. “I thought you should know about a couple of things that have come up,” I said.

  “Since we met yesterday?”

  “Yes. There’s a former employee of Bear Essentials, Borz Kazbek, who—”

  “Who you went to see today.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “When we picked him up for questioning, he mentioned a meeting with a couple of TV producers. Anyone you know, Mrs. Pollack.”

  “I’m just doing my job, Detective.”

  “No, you’re doing my job.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “There are no buts. Keep your nose out of this investigation. I don’t need a killer getting off on a technicality because some overly-nosy civilian decided to play Nancy Drew.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want to know about the note I found stuck on my car windshield?”

  “What note? When?”

  “A few minutes ago. It says, “I won’t be ignored. I will have justice.” All caps. Written on an old typewriter.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t have a clue. You’re the detective.”

  Batswin’s annoyance with me came through loud and clear as she let loose an exasperated exhalation. “You haven’t pissed anyone off lately, have you?”

  “Other than you? No.”

  After another loud breath of annoyance, she said, “My life was a lot less complicated before our paths crossed, Mrs. Pollack.”

  “Mine, too, Detective.” What I wouldn’t give to turn back the clock and not find a dead body glued to my desk chair. “What do you want me to do with the note?”

  “Where are you?”

  “On my way home.”

  “Don’t handle the paper any more than you already have. I’ll pick it up from you tomorrow.” She hung up.

  My phone rang a moment later. I flipped it open, quickly glanced at the display, then blindly fumbled with the answer and speaker buttons as I kept my eyes on traffic.

  “Good. You’re alive,” said Zack after I’d said hello. “The natives are restless.”

  “Which natives? Two-legged, four-legged or winged?”

  “All of the above.”

  “Are you counting yourself among the two-legged variety?”

  “Absolutely. I miss you. Coming home soon?”

  “I’m about half an hour away. I lost track of time at work. What’s going on there?”

  “The usual. Lucille’s minions have overrun your house. The boys and Ralph are camped out in my apartment. Poor Mephisto wanted to escape with them, but Lucille accused me of attempted dog-napping.”

  Just another normal day at Casa Pollack. If it weren’t for a killer on the loose, I’d turn the car around and head back to camp out at the office for the night. Gruenwald’s couch looked comfortable enough for sleeping. With any luck, it opened up into a bed. “At least Mama isn’t there,” I said.

  “Oh, did I forget to mention Flora? She and Lawrence are holed up in your basement.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I’m not sure. Concocting something for the wedding, I think.”

  I groaned. The last time Mama helped herself to my crafting supplies, she nearly left permanent scars on her body from an altercation with my glue gun. Tangling with a killer at Trimedia looked better and better. “She hired a wedding planner and decorator. What could she possibly be doing?”

  “Beats me. She wouldn’t let anyone down the basement to see.”

  “If you love me, you’ll toss them all out of my house before I arrive home.”

  “Hey, you don’t need a lover; you need a miracle worker.”

  “So find me Annie Sullivan.”

  “Good to see you still have your sense of humor.”

  ~*~

  Zack apparently had no luck conjuring up the ghost of Annie Sullivan. When I arrived home, I found Harriet Kleinhample’s rusted-out circa 1960’s orange Volkswagen minibus parked in front of my house. Harriet was the designated driver of the Daughters of the October Revolution. She looked like the late Estelle Getty, sounded like Don Rickles, and hated my guts.

  At least I saw no sign of Lawrence’s gold Honda Accord, which meant he and Mama had finished their wedding project and gone home.

  Mass chaos greeted me the moment I stepped into my kitchen. Dirty pots and pans littered my kitchen table and counters and filled my sink. From the looks of the empty food packages, someone had raided my refrigerator and freezer. I stormed out of the kitchen in search of the guilty parties.

  At the entrance to the den I found the thirteen Daughters of the October Revolution crowded around our forty-eight inch flat-screen television, the last toy Karl had bought himself before dropping dead on that roulette table in Vegas. The credit card bill with the charge arrived a week after his funeral.

  A Russian troika blared at a decibel-shattering level from the wall-mounted surround-sound speakers. Dirty dishes and glasses filled my coffee table, both end tables, and the floor. My mother-in-law held court in the middle of the sofa, a less-than-happy Mephisto trapped on her lap.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  No one answered me. With these women, it was hard to tell whether they were ignoring me or didn’t hear me. I tried again, louder. “Lucille!”

  Twelve heads turned to glare at me and whisper-shouted, “Shh!” in unison.

  Without averting her gaze from the screen, my mother-in-law said, “Be quiet, Anastasia. Can’t you see we’re watching something?”

  I turned to the television to see what had them so thoroughly engrossed. A documentary on the glory days of Mother Russia? No. The Commie Cabal’s collective rapt attention was glued to Dancing with the Stars. “You have got to be kidding me!”

  “Shut the hell up!” yelled Harriet Kleinhample, loud enough for half of Westfield to hear her.

  I marched across the room, grabbed the remote off the end table, and hit the off button. All thirteen commies glared at me as they hurled invectives. No one would ever mistake this bunch for sweet little old ladies.

  Ignoring the insults, I said, “You can finish watching your show as soon as you clean up the mess you made here and in my kitchen.”

  With that I spun around and with the remote firmly clenched in my hand, marched out of the den, out of the house, up the stairs and into Zack’s apartment. I found Alex and Nick doing their homework at the kitchen table, Zack sitting on the sofa, reading the newspaper, and Ralph pecking away at a bowl of sunflower seeds.

  The boys glanced up from their books, greeted me with, “Hi, Mom,” and went back to their homework.
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br />   “Did you eat dinner?” I asked them.

  “Zack fed us,” said Alex.

  I hung my head. “I am such a bad mother.”

  “Yeah, we know,” said Nick, “but we love you anyway.”

  “Thanks. I think.” I turned to Zack. “I don’t know why you put up with us. I can never repay you for all you do.”

  Zack planted a kiss on me. “I’ll think of something.”

  “Just wait until we leave,” said Alex.

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” Not that Alex and Nick cared that Zack and I had entered into a relationship. My sons started playing matchmaker the moment they met Zack.

  I decided to change the subject. “Did you see the mess those women made in my house?” I punctuated my words with a wave of the remote. “And they helped themselves to just about all the food in my freezer!”

  “Who wanteth food, and will not say he wants it, or can conceal his hunger till he famish?” squawked Ralph. “Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Act One, Scene Four.”

  I glared at the parrot. “No one asked you.”

  Ralph cocked his head in my direction, flapped his wings, and helped himself to another sunflower seed.

  “Why are you holding the TV remote?” asked Zack, removing it from my grip.

  When I explained what I’d done, Alex said, “Mom, if they can’t figure out how to turn on the TV without the remote, they’ll just go into your bedroom to continue watching.”

  The thought of the entire contingent of thirteen Daughters of the October Revolution sprawled on my bed was more than I could take. I collapsed onto the sofa and groaned. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Your dinner’s warming in the oven,” said Zack, bending over to plant another kiss on me. He scooped Ralph into his arms, then turned to the boys, “Let’s go, guys.”

  “Where?” they both asked at once.

  “To recapture your home and drive out the Red Menace.”

  ~*~

  Zack returned forty minutes later. “What the hell is this?” he asked, waving a piece of paper in front of my face.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Zack held the paper by one corner, setting it down on the coffee table. “Don’t touch it.”

  I stared at the single typewritten sentence, all in caps, uneven ink, centered on the sheet of white paper: PAY UP OR ELSE.

  “Where did you find that?” I asked, panic taking hold of me. Whoever left the note on my car had followed me home. He knew where I lived!

  “Taped to your front door. I checked the surveillance cameras.”

  Zack had installed a state-of-the-art security system in my house and the garage a few months ago. He claimed he needed to protect his expensive camera equipment, especially after Ricardo broke into my house several times, stealing anything not nailed down. I didn’t argue with him. After all, at the time a Mafioso threatened me and my family.

  “And?” I asked.

  “Someone left the note about an hour ago. Tall guy. Over six feet. Dressed all in black and wearing a ski mask.”

  “What about a car?”

  “He didn’t park near enough to the house for the cameras to capture one. Does this have anything to do with that murder at Trimedia?”

  Did it? I honestly didn’t know. I shook my head. “I don’t think so, but—”

  He headed for the kitchen area of the large room, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a box of plastic Ziploc bags. Removing one, he returned to slip the note inside the bag. “But you can’t be sure?”

  “No. It doesn’t make any sense, though.” I told him about the first note. “I called Detective Batswin. She’s meeting me tomorrow morning.”

  “Ricardo didn’t escape from prison, did he?”

  “Wouldn’t someone have notified me?”

  “Probably but who knows? Maybe someone was paid off not to notify you. Or he’s still in prison and someone on the outside took over his collections.”

  My husband had died owing fifty thousand dollars to Ricardo Ferrara, a Mafia loan shark who worked for Joey Milano. Both Ricardo and Joey now called a maximum security prison home, but that didn’t mean either had given up the life. Many crime bosses continued business as usual from behind penitentiary walls.

  Zack headed for his bedroom. A minute later he returned, a gun in his hand. An eye-popping, scary-as-hell, bad-ass gun. The kind of gun used by alphabet guys in the movies and on television. “What are you doing with that?”

  “Protecting you and the boys. Until we figure out who sent those notes and why, you’re not staying alone in the house.”

  My hero. But he’d added more fuel to my spy theory. “Why does a photo-journalist need a Glock or Beretta or whatever that thing is?”

  “It’s a Sig Sauer, and I need it for protection.”

  “Against meerkats and monkeys?”

  “Against poachers and drug lords.”

  Did I believe him? I decided not to think about whatever secrets Zack kept from me. Right now a kick-ass guy, who may or may not be a spy, stood before me, a semi-automatic pistol clenched in his hand, ready to protect me and my sons. He’d get no argument from me. At least not tonight.

  Leading the way, his Sig at the ready, Zack escorted me back to the house. We entered into a spotless kitchen. “Who cleaned up?”

  “Call it a collaborative effort.”

  “Yeah, said Alex, strolling into the kitchen. “Grandmother Lucille and her groupies did a half-ass job, and we—” His eyes grew wide as he spied the gun in Zack’s hand. “Holy shit!”

  Zack tucked the gun into his waistband. “Get your brother.”

  “What about Lucille?” I asked.

  “She went to bed,” said Alex.

  “Let’s keep her in the dark as long as possible,” said Zack.

  “Works for me.” What’s one more secret to keep from my mother-in-law?

  When Alex returned with Nick, we sat around the kitchen table, and I explain about the threatening notes. I finished by saying, “Until we find out who’s sending the notes and why, I don’t want either of you alone. Zack will escort you to and from school tomorrow.”

  “What about you, Mom?” asked Nick.

  “Yeah, who’s going to protect you?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I’ll be taking your mother to work tomorrow,” said Zack.

  “That’s not necessary,” I said. “The police in Morristown know about the first note, and I’m going to call the Westfield police now.”

  “It’s absolutely necessary,” said Zack in a voice that warned me not to argument with him.

  I didn’t.

  ~*~

  Half an hour later, Officers Harley and Fogarty, my two favorite Westfield cops, showed up. “We checked. Ricardo Ferrara is still locked away. Joey Milano, too,” said Harley.

  “They could have someone working on the outside for them, though,” said Fogarty. “We’ll keep an eye on you and the boys until we clear this up.” He held up the bagged note. “Maybe someone got sloppy and left us a fingerprint.”

  “That’s what we’re hoping,” said Zack.

  “What about the other note?” asked Harley. “Still have that one?”

  “I was going to give it to Detective Batswin tomorrow morning.”

  “We’ll take both of them,” said Harley.

  I knew this would piss off Batswin, but she and the Morris County police could fight out jurisdiction issues with the Westfield police. I didn’t care who investigated as long as someone caught this creep before he confronted me or my kids.

  Even though I took comfort in having Zack snuggled in bed beside me, his weapon within easy reach on the night stand, I never fell asleep. Neither did he. As I lie awake, holding my breath at every nocturnal sound—a breeze rustling the leaves, a car driving down the street, the rumble of a freight train half a mile away—I sensed him equally alert. I marked time by the grandfather clock announcing the passage of each quarter hour and heard each one
from the moment I crawled into bed until the alarm went off hours later.

  ~*~

  The next morning Zack and I dropped the boys off at the high school and waited until they’d safely entered the building before we headed to Trimedia. I didn’t worry about leaving Lucille alone in the house. Creepy Note Guy would know I’d be at work today.

  “You don’t have to stay,” I told Zack when we arrived. “I’ve got my Tino Shadow to protect me.” I indicated with a tilt of my head to where Tino stood half-hidden in the shadows of the building at the edge of the parking lot.

  “If you don’t mind, I want a good look at your Tino Shadow before I hand you off to him.” He parked the car and took me by the arm to escort me across the parking lot.

  I dug in my heels and spun around to face him. “You don’t think Tino—”

  Zack stared over my shoulder. “Just making sure.”

  I pivoted to watch Tino out of the corner of my eye. He stepped from the shadows and headed toward us.

  “It’s not him,” said Zack, now able to get a better look.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Even though circumstantial evidence kept cropping up to indicate otherwise, I desperately wanted Tino to be one of the good guys in my life. “You’re positive? You said you couldn’t see the features of the guy who left the note.”

  “No, but I did get a good view of his build as he approached the house and as he walked away. Your friend’s about the same height, but the guy at the door didn’t have his Conan the Barbarian bulk.”

  “Everything okay, Mrs. P.?” asked Tino as he quickly covered the remaining distance between us.

  “Yes, thank you. This is Zack Barnes.”

  “Her boyfriend,” said Zack, offering his hand to Tino.

  The two men clasped hands as their latent caveman Y chromosomes performed the time-honored ritual of sizing up each other’s testosterone levels. No matter how advanced a society we become, some things will probably never change.